The first thing you ought to think about is what you are spending your money on.  Basically you want to be in charge of your finances rather than sticking your head in the ground and hoping for the best.  Those who really know their finances inside-out have a better chance of staying out of financial difficulties.

There are calculators online that allow you to enter all of your main expenses such as loan repayments, insurance and telephone costs.  Enter all the details in and you will see exactly what you are spending your money on.  You might be surprised and even shocked.  So if you are spending more than you can really afford you should try and look at ways that you can bring these expenses down.  For instance you might refinance an underwater mortgage in order to get a better rate.

Paying all of your bills on time is essential and if for whatever reason you don’t think you will be able to pay the full amount, just contact the creditor and ask them to help you out.  They can often be very good about this and by communicating with them you will be able to avoid getting negative marks on your credit reports.

Last but not least you should take advantage of the fact that you are allowed to request a copy of your credit reports from each of the main agencies which comprise of Experian, Equifax and TransUnion for free every 12 months.  If you do this then you can make sure that everything is all correct.  It might be that one of the reports show a loan outstanding when actually you paid it off in full months earlier.  These sorts of mistakes can have a negative impact on your score so make sure you alert the agencies to this.